player profiles

Bored Invents

That was me on twitter during the last session of the fifth day, only it was being played last. Prior to this, funny how every time I say Prior, thought gets sidetracked.

But not this time. All I saw of this game prior to this last session was Ashwell Prince; and while there are many compelling reasons to watch cricket, he isn’t one of them. The IPL know this, and he wasn’t eaten up.

But the South Africa-England and New Zealand-Pakistan test series have been truly superb. There are no ad breaks. You see the players change ends, run errands, walk the dog. It’s sublime, so every day; I’ve really started to enjoy mid overs. The pace is a tad off mind you.

That was how it was and then I arrived on the last session. In fact the last leg of the last session – from 9 pm – 9.55 pm (IST). That’s when the wickets fell, the South African lived in hope (no Cape jokes) and became generally unbearable.

Of course, once Trott and KP were consumed, there were no more durable batsmen left, except Collingwood, not very perishable, is he?

Collingwood was made to save games, in a way, he’s like the poor man's Dravid. His place will always be in peril. Right now the ECB are questioning his innings, why didn’t he convert the first innings’ fifty? Before you know it, Trott will completely overshadow Collingwood as the shadow Prime Minister.

But today is his, again. He was the last batsman standing; his position in middle order at 5 seems just about right after Trott and KP, and England have something going for the series.

Don’t be surprised if they go on to bigger things from here. May not be the Ashes all over again, but this could be one tight series. Don’t waste too much time over it, but keep the post tea session on the fifth day open. Next time, who knows, it could be Boucher playing a Collingwood at Durban. For his sake, I hope Ntini isn’t non-striker. He’s no Onions, and doesn’t he know that.

PS: Talking about Ntini, why waste the last over on him - his bowling idiom has always been, "how to miss the stumps".

8 comments:

thanx ! i was almost thinking of a post but a comment's so much easier ;-)...well , to summarise : thank you KP , thank you england and thank you ntini - we can always count on you to keep it alive and kicking ;-) !

Trust the Eng media to now praise this test to the sky. On how Eng - S Af are saving test cricket , while the one's in subcontinent are killing it.

If not for the most comical of collapses, this test was dead as a dodo. It also begs the question - how exactly do South Africa plan to get 20 wickets ? They seemed so bereft of ideas when a couple of S Affa's were at the crease - oh wait maybe that was the problem. 13 S Affa's on the field, they thought they were practising :-)

TG, I feel Trott will do well, and even if has his problems with spin or the sub, that won't break him; on the contrary how he plays Aus and SAF, that will decide. He'll be alright, there's fight in him, and he's waited.